


it isn't always easy

by writevale



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Background pining for Martin, Gen, Haircuts, Jon and Daisy BFFLs, Post MAG 132, Reference to past Jon/Georgie, They n e e d each other, Trauma Recovery, i need you to understand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23263492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writevale/pseuds/writevale
Summary: Daisy needs a favour.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 26
Kudos: 187





	it isn't always easy

'Statement ends.' The Archivist removed his glasses with a long, shaky breath that went right to the ache at the bottom of his lungs. Where his ribs had been. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his relatively unmarked hand. The constant itch at the back of them was finally quiet _. But for how long?_

He looked up at the sound of movement behind him. The quiet creak of a chair as Daisy, almost forgotten in her silent vigil as he recorded the statement, rose and padded over to him. Jon's face twisted in confusion as her tall frame bent over his desk to rummage in the drawer. She pulled out a pair of scissors. The blades flashed in the fluorescent light from the bulb above.

'Daisy?' Jon's pulse jumped in his neck as he pushed himself back from his desk slowly. He studied her face. There was no malice there, but since dragging her from The Buried, he had seen nothing on her face except a bone-tired apathy. He took in the bruised violet smudges underneath her frosty eyes. Cloudy, when they had once glittered like sweat on the handle of a knife. She clutched the scissors tight in her hand, knuckles white. Jon knew for a fact that those scissors were too dull to slice through anything more than two sheets of paper at a time. He knew that would probably make it hurt more when she lunged for him.

_Well,_ he thought, letting his eyes slide closed despite the hammering in his chest, _I would rather it be Daisy_.

'Stop that.' Daisy growled. Jon blinked his hazel eyes open in time to see her flip the scissors over in her hand, presenting the handles to him, blade enclosed in a pale fist. 'I-' Jon shuffled awkwardly in his seat, hands clenched on his lap. People underestimate how much a human sweats when they think they're about to die. 'I'm not going to hurt you, Jon.' Her voice was quiet with the weight of her weariness.

'I'm not going to hurt you either.' He replied quickly, eyeing the proffered scissors warily.

'Good. I -' She swallowed. 'Need to ask a favour.' Jon's mind raced. A favour that she specifically wanted from him that involved scissors? _Does Basira know about this?_ He wanted to ask but didn't. He nodded. 'Will you cut my hair?'

'What?'

'Look, I know you don't owe me any more favours after - you know. But. Will you cut my hair?'

'I - I don't understand. Why would you want _me_ to cut it? I'd do an awful job.' Jon stared at her in disbelief. _Martin has cut his own hair for years,_ he suddenly Knew. The insight was accompanied with an image of Martin, standing in front of a grotty mirror, trying desperately to get his coppery fringe straight. His insides felt cold.

'Yeah, I know.' Daisy said with a bluntness that had not been left behind in the coffin. 'I don't care how it looks, I just need it off.'

'But - _why?_ '

'Don't!'

'Sorry!' He fought the urge to compel the answer out of her off his tongue and tried again. 'You have nice hair.' She did, Jon supposed. He didn't really know much about what counted as nice hair these days. He'd always admired the bouncy curls that Georgie had lamented over, liked them even as she insisted that they were wild and she'd be better cutting them off. Martin's hair looked impossibly thick, held in place only by its own weight. Jon suspected that it would feel wonderful between his fingers. But he also suspected that inkling had little to do with Martin's hair and more to do with Martin himself. Daisy's was a dirty blonde, darker at the roots and currently piled on top of her head in a tight bun. Guilty, Jon found that he couldn't really remember how Daisy had used to wear her hair before. His memories of Daisy were more action than description.

She dragged a spare chair over to the front of his desk and collapsed into it. The scissors danced in her hands as she bowed her head. She pressed the tip of them into the top of her thigh, in and out, not hard enough to break through to her skin but Jon knew she could feel the potential of it.

'Daisy.' He said sternly. Her hands stilled.

'When I was inside the coffin,' She started. Jon inhaled slowly and held the breath there. 'There was just this one piece of hair that got stuck right across my face. Across my lips.' She gestured vaguely. 'And I couldn't move to get rid of it. And, _God_ , it drove me insane. That constant, tickling itch. Every time I would forget about it, something would shift or I'd take a breath and it would move until I couldn't possibly ignore it again.' Jon thought he understood. 'And now, every time some of my hair falls in my face, it's like I'm back there again. Choking on it.'

'Daisy.' She looked over at him as though no-one had ever said her name that softly in her entire life. He winced as he stood up from his chair, body protesting with every step around the side of his desk.

'I just need it gone.' She explained, blue eyes haunted. The scissors were easily plucked from her hand.

'This is going to look a mess.' An indirect confirmation of consent.

'Pf. It's fine.' She reached up her shaking hands to pull her hair free. It fell past her shoulders in a tangled wave. 'You can be the pretty one.' Jon didn't want to stare, but he thought he saw the hint of a smile at the edges of her chapped lips.

Jon's own hands were surprisingly steady as he began to chop at the hair, careful to keep it back from her face as he did so. A whirling feeling in his stomach told suggested that this, somehow, was even more of a display of trust that the way she had gripped onto his hand as he pulled them out from the pressure of that dirt. The scissors were awful, and his technique definitely fell into the hacking category. Daisy stopped him repeatedly to run a hand through the increasingly short strands.

'Shorter.' She demanded with a shudder.

And then, 'Shorter. Please.'

He ended up laying the scissors flat against the contour of her skull, snipping wildly to catch as many of the short brown hairs as he could between the blades. _This would have taken seconds with a pair of clippers_ , he thought with a mental tut at the pair of them. But then, there would be no delicate quiet. No gentle hand on Daisy's shoulder to hold her head in place.

'There.' Jon said finally. He swept the loose hair off the back of her neck and blew at it sharply when several strands refused to budge. She looked quite striking like this, actually, Jon was pleased to note. The new lack of hair drew attention to the sharp cut of her cheekbones, made her eyes seem larger. They seemed to flicker in the awful, artificial light above Jon's desk. She stood up from the chair, careful to avoid the halo of shorn blonde strands on the floor surrounding it. She ran a hand through the remaining bristles and smiled.

'Cheers.'

'Anyt-'

They both jumped at the knock at the door. It swung out with its usual squeak to reveal Basira, mouth already open to prise Daisy away for her physiotherapy.

' _What the fuck?_ '

Jon looked down at the rather incriminating scissors in his hand. Daisy's grin stretched to reveal all her teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> I went to sleep with this scene fully formed and, I swear, nothing has ever flowed out of my fingertips so smoothly. please, allow me to grab you by your lapels and scream _JON and DAISY are BEST FRIENDS_. thank you, I just needed to get that off my chest. 
> 
> title from one of my fave songs about friendship: waiting on you by newton faulkner


End file.
